How to Boot Up Acer Aspire in Safe Mode

It's a work day. You have numbers to key into a spreadsheet and a presentation in four hours. You turn on your Acer Aspire netbook and the system starts booting up. The Windows operating system hangs before completing the boot-up process. You turn off the Acer Aspire and restart it, but the operating system still hangs. Don't panic. Like other Windows-based systems, you can boot the Acer Aspire into Windows "Safe Mode" so you can troubleshoot the booting problem (or use the system on a minimal basis).

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Step

Restart the Acer Aspire netbook by pressing the "power" button on the netbook's keyboard or by pressing the "CTRL," "ALT" and "DEL" keys at the same time.

Step

During startup, hold down the "F8" function key immediately when you see the "Acer" splash screen and the option for entering "Setup."

Step

Keep pressing the "F8" key until the "Advanced Boot Options" menu appears. If you receive a "keyboard error," restart the Acer Aspire and repeat step 2.

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Step

Use the arrow keys to navigate to the "Safe Mode" selection on the "Advanced Boot Options" menu. The arrow keys are located on the right-hand side of the Acer Aspire keyboard.

Step

Press the "Enter" key to execute the "Safe Mode" selection. The Windows operating system will now start in "Safe Mode" and you can perform a system restore or make needed changes to get your Acer Aspire to boot normally again.